1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to a method of providing a multimedia messaging service and, more particularly, to a method of providing a multimedia messaging service, which allocates a unique identifier to a multimedia message transmitted from a user and stores the multimedia message with the unique identifier, thus efficiently processing billing and providing a moving picture messaging service through an external video-on-demand server.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) for forwarding multimedia messages using mobile stations has been frequently used. In the early version of the MMS, multimedia messages including still pictures were serviced. However, recently, multimedia messages, in which various types of media including moving pictures are combined with each other, are serviced.
MMS is a service defined in international standards, such as the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) Technical Specification (TS) 22.140 and 23.140
The MMS defined in the 3GPP adopts store-and-forward messaging as a message transmission method. A multimedia message is encapsulated and transmitted, along with media contents, information required to describe the media contents, and address information required to identify a message recipient. Such a multimedia message is transmitted to a Multimedia Messaging Service Center (MMSC) from an originating mobile station. The MMSC informs a receiving mobile station that the MMSC stores therein the multimedia message. Further, the multimedia message stored in the MMSC is forwarded to the receiving mobile station in response to a request from the receiving mobile station.
Multimedia contents forwarded through the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) are classified into free contents without copyrights and service charges and paid contents with copyrights and service charges.
However, when multimedia contents are retransmitted, since each of the multimedia contents does not have a unique identifier, a problem that unwanted contents are transmitted may occur. Especially, in the case of paid contents, the information of a Content Provider (CP) can be ascertained through content identifiers allocated to respective contents, but billing information is not included in the content identifiers, making it impossible to process billing for retransmission.
Moreover, a moving picture messaging service is not directly processed by an MMS relay, but processed by an external Video-on-Demand (VOD) server communicating with the MMS relay through an MM3 interface. However, when the external VOD server provides a moving picture messaging service in a streaming manner, there is a problem in that the uniqueness of a stored moving picture message is not guaranteed, making it difficult to process billing.